Verstärken - Strengthened

Well here I am once again: sat in front of my keyboard, staring at a randomly selected German word and a blinking cursor. After three and a half months without an entry, it’s high time I strengthened my linguistic resolve and devised a less blatant way to shoehorn in today’s word. Another day at work spent with a thousand chronically thick customers irritating my face off (more irritatingly than Nick Cage in Face Off) finally forced me into action. I felt compelled to acquire a German to English dictionary, reasoning it’d help me release some of my frustrations textually before they manifested themselves in a far uglier, but likely far funnier way. While drawing cocks on computer screens or being sick on a plasma telly might not be as extreme or cool as a bloody workplace massacre, it’d still end up costing me money and friends I don’t have. Outputting even a smidgen of cynicism here through the telling of events bearing no relevance to the given German word should help keep that Samsung 42” puke-free a few extra days anyway. So after work I sped over to the languages section of the nearest bookshop, and some frantic searching later relaxed as I found my prize. The only one they had. Phew! Unfortunately though when I spied the $30 price tag, my dictionary-purchase-urge was killed faster than an outed paedo on a Leeds council estate. Fifteen quid for something I could get for three back home. And to clarify, that‘s the number three, not a lispy textprunciation of free. And that doesn’t even make sense, but I like the term textprunciation so much it’s guaranteed to survive the edit. So there. Anyway, not wanting to shell out good money that could have been given to charity, (but ninety-nine [plus one] percent more likely given to the supermarket for booze and cookies) some improvisation was required. I decided to (firstly construct this awfully clunky sentence, but then) head to German Google, click on news, load the top story, and with closed eyes arbitrarily jab the screen to find my word. The only problem was the first time I got ‘Karzai‘, the second ‘Afghanistan‘, the third ‘Karzai’ again. While it’d have been terribly easy to write a piece comprising of hee-larious Helmand Province/Helmann’s Mayonnaise puns and quips about dead soldiers, it wouldn’t have felt right. Thankfully, fourth time lucky threw up a word that strengthened my linguistic resol… no, that’s just awful. I’ll keep trying. Bear with me.

That’s the story so far. Hopefully this entry will serve as a half-solid foundation onto which a flurry of new, largely meaningless writings based on random words can settle. It’s almost possible that the ailing health of this blog could be bolstered, or, sigh, even strengthened by these new Antipodean ramblings. We’ll see. And that’s the best I can do. Pretty weak, huh?